Zweilous [GP 0/2]

<p> You may be surprised to find that the strongest user of Outrage is not a fearsome land shark, or a flying dragon with earth shattering power; but in fact a small, dual-headed dragon, badly in need of a haircut. That's right, thanks to Hustle, Zweilous has the equivalent of a base Attack stat greater than 150, beating Uber behemoths like Rayquaza and Zekrom. He even has access to perfect neutral coverage in RU with Fire Fang and a very nice dual STAB with Crunch. Putting Zweilous in a tier with so few Steels to resist Outrage must be crazy, right? Wrong. Combine his terrible speed and below average bulk with the popularity of Fighting and Bug-type moves in the tier and Zweilous becomes incredibly easy to revenge kill. Outside of coverage, Zweilous doesn’t get any useful moves like Pursuit or Dragon Claw to avoid locking himself into Outrage, as well as few viable stat boosting moves, meaning Pursuit-users like Honchkrow and boosting Dragon-types like Fraxure often compete with him for a spot in a team. Even if Zweilous can overcome these downfalls he still has to deal with all his normally 100% accurate moves being cut down to a measly 80% accuracy and a miss could easily spell doom for Zweilous due to his frailty. Despite this, Zweilous can still break holes in the opponent's team for a comrade to sweep, and definitely has its niches if played correctly.</p>

<p>This set is designed to abuse the ridiculous power that Outrage has in order to break holes in the opponent's team. With Choice Band and Hustle, Zweilous receives a boost larger than Swords Dance while Eviolite assures that an Outrage miss isn’t as deadly and that he can take the opponent’s hit and strike back next turn. Normally, investing Speed EVs into a naturally slow Pokemon is pointless but with 20 Speed EVs he can outspeed uninvested base 60's like Clefable and Weezing before they cripple him with status or KO him. This allows him to strike the foe with one of his STAB moves or, if the foe resists those two moves like Ferroseed or Magneton, Zweilous can hit them with a super-effective Fire Fang. With the great coverage Zweilous has, the 4th move slot is mainly filler, although if Eviolite is chosen Zweilous can make great use of Substitute when he is not certain of a KO and fears status from the likes of Weezing and Tangrowth.</p>

[ADDITIONAL COMMENTS]

<p>The choice between Eviolite and Choice Band is a tough one, and greatly impacts the way Zweilous is played. With Eviolite, Zweilous can use his unique typing and resistances to switch in to many threats more effectively before firing off a powerful Outrage. The fact that he is not locked into a move also means he can use his great coverage more efficiently, as well as the opponent will not be doing as much damage if Zweilous should happen to miss due to Hustle. However, Choice Band guarantees many 2 and 3HKO's on common physical walls such as Tangrowth, who needs to have taken damage from Stealth Rock and 1 layer of Spikes to be 2HKO'd 100% of the time without Choice Band, or even Weezing, who has a 50% chance of surviving 2 un-boosted Outrages.</p>

<p>Stealth Rock support and at least one layer of Spikes are very effective in turning 3HKO’s into 2HKO’s, especially when running Eviolite. The Choice Band set can also phaze a threat out with Dragon Tail, racking up even more hazard damage. Roselia and Qwilfish both have pretty good synergy with Zweilous and can set up Spikes while Claydol can set up Stealth Rocks for him. Claydol can also spin away hazards for Zweilous, a very useful ability considering how often Zweilous switches. However, a Wish user is a viable alternative to recover entry hazard damage, especially after losing 25% of your health when using Substitute.</p>

<p>If the damage from Substitute is offputting, Taunt can be used as a replacement, as Taunt also stops status, but Substitute takes advantage of the switches Zweilous causes and as such is generally superior. Thunder Wave is another effective move for the 4th slot as it means Zweilous can outspeed the foe, and means that a miss with Hustle wouldn’t always give your opponent a free turn due to the chance of a full paralysis, but Zweilous generally doesn’t have the time to use status moves, so it is even more effective with paralysis support from a team mate.</p>

<p>Despite the few steel-types in the tier, almost every one of them can wall Zweilous without a problem, hit him with a powerful move or cripple him with status. This makes Magneton a good partner as he can trap opposing steel-types in order to take them out with an HP fire while protecting himself from status with a Substitute. Once the steel-types are out of the way, Zweilous can then proceed to take out (or severely damage) many common walls such as Clefable, Munchlax, and Tangrowth, allowing a sweeper normally walled by these threats to clean up. A great example of this would be Druddigon as they form a very powerful dual-dragon core and benefit from similar support.</p>

[Other Options]

<p>Zweilous has a severe lack of options in its movepool limiting any diversity from the move set, but there are a few moves worth a mention. Ice Fang is perhaps the most notable, as it can beat Gligar without locking Zweilous into Outrage but is situational at best, especially considering the move's 76% accuracy. Other physical options include Head Smash, Thunder Fang, Return, and Body Slam, but offer no additional coverage to his moveset. The only boosting move Zweilous has access to is Work Up, which although could be viable on a mixed set with Earth Power and Dragon Pulse, Zweilous generally doesn’t have the speed or bulk to set up, even with Eviolite. Choice Scarf is an option as with a Jolly nature, he can outspeed Pokemon with 110 base Speed and max Speed EVs, but is generally better left to a Pokemon with better movepool options such as Honchkrow.</p>

[Checks and Counters]

<p>Countering a Pokemon with more physical attack than Rayquaza can seem tough, but Steel-types do a great job at it as long as they are careful of Fire Fang. Aggron and Steelix are great candidates thanks to their gargantuan defence, resistance to Outrage, and to add to this, both of them have powerful STAB attacks that can severely maim Zweilous. Checking Zweilous is a much easier prospect however, as a number of fast and strong Fighting types can come in to take out Zweilous with a quick Close Combat or Hi-Jump Kick, although most cannot take an Outrage. Many Ice- and Bug- types are in a similar boat as well. Zweilous is very vulnerable to status, especially burn, so anything with above base 60 Speed and Will-O-Wisp such as Rotom, and his RU-legal appliance forms can easily cripple Zweilous for the rest of the match.</p>

A few things,
1. You're missing your [ADDITIONAL COMMENTS] section. This section outlines anything alternate on the set that isn't good enough to be listed in the actual set. It also shows good partners and other things that you can check other threads for (try Heysup's thread).
2. You're supposed to use brackets instead of parentheses ( ) -> [ ]
3. Make sure to mention Druddigon as a partner since there is no team that like likes taking two powerful Outrages.
4. You shouldn't mention that Sableye has Priority WoW because everything outspeeds it anyways, so everything with WoW cripples it for the most part.

I was just thinking, would sub work on that first set? with the 20 spe evs to set up a sub right in front of weezing, just a thought of mine.

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Sub over what? the last slot already has slash syndrome. I suppose I could slash Fire Fang with Sub but Zweilous has no means of rrecovery so losing 25% of health really sucks. Wish support would then be even more necessary. Furthermore, Sub is, IMO, slightly more situational than Fire Fang. I will mention in Additional comments though.

I think the set order should be changed around, purely on merit of the huge power of that CB Outrage. Substitute deserves a mention on the first set, since you can block any attempts to status Zweilous, before you start launching off those Outrages.

Otherwise all looks good!

EDIT: You need to mention Aggron as a counter, it's the best one out there by far. Believe it or not, but everything else in the entire tier is 2HKOed by CB Outrage, except Aggron.

I think the set order should be changed around, purely on merit of the huge power of that CB Outrage. Substitute deserves a mention on the first set, since you can block any attempts to status Zweilous, before you start launching off those Outrages.

Otherwise all looks good!

EDIT: You need to mention Aggron as a counter, it's the best one out there by far. Believe it or not, but everything else in the entire tier is 2HKOed by CB Outrage, except Aggron.

Click to expand...

Added Aggron. Sub was mentioned in Additional Comments but am still too skeptical to give it a slash. I am about to test it out. I am not sure about changing the order as the bulky set takes better advantage of Hustle where as the more offensive one basically means Zweilous will be dead if he misses.

Sub as primary option. Maybe I just don't understand it but I don't understand why I'd ever want to be thunder waving or toxicing (or dtailing even) something when I could be using outrage. Also sub gives it insurance against any Sableyes.

CB should be the first set tbh. Since it seems like a spammer with all that power. I guess eviolite is kinda nice but ehhh... someone else weigh in.

Ice Fang in OO for Gligar. Idk if head smash hits anything but it's there, if you can come up with anything oo it i guess.

<@Fried_Rhys> yo guys
<@Fried_Rhys> anyone else think zweilous could be merged into one set
<@Honko> it would be kinda crowded as one set
<@Honko> but they both do pretty much the same thing
<@Fried_Rhys> well i mean life orb is gonna be inferior almost every time to eviolite or cb
<@Fried_Rhys> i rather have cb / eviolite be the items and just slash taunt next to dtail
<@Honko> yeah that sounds good
<@Honko> everything else in AC

Basically 9 times out of 10 you come in and spam Outrage regardless of Taunt being on the moveset. Taunt isn't useless though, and is definitely worthy of competing for a slot. They're both wallbreakers also, which could be misleading to someone who reads this analysis. So basically I'd like to see:

I did it and seems kind of confused. Theres a lot in AC that could be split into different sections. I personally prefer the 2 set approach but ok. For the 4th slot I think Tauntshould get first slash but regardless. There is a lot I put in AC that could go into OO so some opinions on that are needed.

C&C Leader

I'd rather see Substitute over Taunt as that last slash, just because a slow Taunt doesn't do much when you could be both protecting yourself from revenge killers and blocking status with Sub. I don't think there's really anything that'd have the balls to try and set up on Zweilous tbh outside of Aggron/Steelix.

I'd rather see Substitute over Taunt as that last slash, just because a slow Taunt doesn't do much when you could be both protecting yourself from revenge killers and blocking status with Sub. I don't think there's really anything that'd have the balls to try and set up on Zweilous tbh outside of Aggron/Steelix.